Daily Fix

How much self-hate, how low a self-esteem, does one need to become a Bobby Jindal?

To abandon your religion; to convert to one that’ll get the most votes and catapult you into the dubious career of a Southern Republican politician; to bad-mouth any one who looks like you but different from your voters; to mimic noises that you think make you appear as ‘one of us’; and then, to start doing the Michael Jackson thing: re-engineering your looks so that you can pass (you think) as a snow-white caucasian!

Why? So that you can rub shoulders and feel at home with your fellow religious nuts?

There seems to be no end to what this silly man is willing to do to demean himself, as long as it brings him a few more votes.

Here’s his latest shenanigan:

He’s started presenting himself to America as a ‘white’ instead of the darker skin colour he was born with, and has to this very day. On the right, you’ll see a portrait his team has been touting in recent weeks … a sight painful and yet humorous in revealing the depths a man without integrity will go to ingratiate an ignorant and unsophisticated populace.

TIME Magazine describes Jindal’s desperate attempt to look ‘white’ as being “whitewashed to the shade of Benedict Cumberbatch.”

A few years ago, we had a similar wannabe leader in Canada by the name of Preston Manning. A racist and bigot to the core, part of his publicly proclaimed manifesto was unabashedly opposing Sikh turbans in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

So, how did he go about to get elected? Promising to be a new kind of politician, he bought a few new suits and a couple of pairs of black shoes, had a facial done, got a hair make-over, threw away his glasses and snuck in contacts. Even a quick dental make-over.

But forgot to get a mental make-over.

Today, not too much later, he’s referred to as a hiccup by those whose memory still serves them well.

Or is Jindal getting his cues from Narendra Modi in India whose poverty stricken populace competes with that of Louisiana?

The recently refurbished Modi seems to be Jindal’s understudy -- they come from the same ideological background! -- especially, in how the former has begun to wear western-style suits in the presence of foreign visitors. Oddly, they’ve sewn him a gentleman’s suit which actually has Modi’s own name in full embroidered over and over again, a thousand times, literally, up and down his own jacket. As if he needs to be reminded his name when he gets tongue-tied mouthing the strange English phrases he‘s been hastily taught so that he can sound like a prime minister.

Rumour has it, they had to embroider an additional ’Left Leg’, ’Right Leg’ on Modi’s trousers on the eve of Obama‘s visit. You see, he’d never worn a pair of the damn things before.

Well, Mr Jindal. It ain’t that easy any more. It got Preston Manning nowhere. And it hasn’t done Modi’s image much good either.

The road to America’s presidency is not by becoming a behroopia -- a master of disguises.

A harlequin.

The path to being chosen a Republican nominee is not the Mardi Gras. Republicans may be ignorant, but they’re not stupid.

And, Mr Jindal, neither can you get out of New Orleans by swimming in the gutter. The alligators, I’m told, can smell bigots from a mile away.

The only thing I can think of that may be of help to you, if you care for my unsolicited advice, is a mental make-over.

Or even better, a lobotomy.

In the meantime, the only invasion we need to worry about today -- contrary to Jindal's fear-mongering slogans which he throws around freely in his so-called 'prayer meetings' -- is one of the Indian brand of greed and corruption that this silly, self-hating dark-brown man has imported from the sad land of his ancestors to America.

Certainly, what neither the world nor America needs today is a brown-skinned bigot.

If he's ashamed of his skin-colour, how does he approach his black constituents in Louisiana? Isn't it a heavily black-populated state? Does he go as a blackface minstrel? Or does he wear a burqa? And when he's addressing the KKK rallies? Does he go as a paleface Cracker? Just curious. (What a wonderful, fascinating zoo of a world we live in!)

I've read his racist and inflammatory comments on Muslims. I wonder what he thinks of Blacks. And Sikhs? Jews? Native-Americans. And those upstart feminist women. I won't even ask about gays and lesbians!

I suspect Jindal thinks he's positioning himself well for the Republican V-P slot. Not a chance! As T. Sher has pointed out, Republicans aren't stupid. But then ... they did choose Sarah Palin, didn't they? I'm keeping my fingers crossed, all of them, praying that they get Jindal. He'll be so-o good ... for the Democrats!

As Rajiv Gandhi who belonged to a supposedly secular party reaped political benefits by becoming the posterboy of the anti-Sikh lobby in the 1980s, Modi did the same by becoming the posterboy for fanatical Hindutva. Jindal is trying the same sinister Indian formula in America, a dark skinned convert is what the Christian right needs at this moment and they will lose no time in dumping him when they no longer need him. As rightly pointed out in this article, this guy is bringing an incurable Indian disease to America. Like Rajiv Gandhi, none of these guys can make any meaningful contribution to humanity

The annals of human history are replete with examples of when certain sections of humanity or individuals have attempted to label or render derogatory nomenclature to other sections of humanity ... insults such as nigger, shylock, wasp, pollack, wop, wog, chink, jap, hun, paki ... the list is endless. And we all know in how low esteem history holds such perpetrators of bigotry and racism, as opposed to the ones with the highest ideals and values such as those who have hailed and honoured equality of, and respect for all peoples. Mr Jindal, through his bigotry as well as in imitating Michael Jackson by his sad and unfortunate self-mutilation, is bound to discover before long that he too has no nose left to brag about. [My heart goes out to Michael Jackson for his pathology which led to his aberrant behaviour, but I simply cannot have any sympathy for Mr Jindal's affliction.]

Jindal: Let's all work towards turning the United States into a miserable land like India. See what we've done with Louisiana? Now, let's do it to the other states as well. And ... I'm the man who can help you do it!

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